Horseshoe Hill

Where to Eat Now 2016

03/01/2016

To make our roster of the ten best, a restaurant must have opened between November 1, 2014, and November 30, 2015, and it must be a first location. But enough already. A smorgasbord awaits, ranging from Mediterranean snacks to English pub grub to old-time Texas cooking. It’s dinnertime! Eat now, confess later.

Horseshoe Hill Cafe, Fort Worth

PHOTOGRAPH BY KELSEY WILSON

This is the kind of food that Big Tex—the 55-foot-tall cowboy who looms benevolently over the State Fair of Texas—would eat if he were a real person. Classic Texas dishes are done right here, from golden, extravagantly battered chicken-fried steaks to sizzling, scandalously fat-ribboned aged ribeyes. Beef dominates the menu, of course (there are even light, fluffy calf fries, for those who have never had the pleasure). But roasted chicken also has a featured role, ably supported by terrific green-chile grits. Mustard-spiked deviled eggs come dolled up with crumbles of bacon and sriracha salsa. The man in charge is the affable Grady Spears, 47, and if he’s not busy, he will greet you and deliver your food. He has been bouncing around West Texas and Fort Worth for more than twenty years, but with this modest little spot in the Stockyards Historic District, he’s found his niche. Opened July 23, 2015. 204 W. Exchange Ave (817-882-6405). L & D Wed–Sat.